Bloodheir

by Brian Ruckley

  His heart raced, as if meaning to tear itself apart. He found images of blood and violence rushing through his head, invading him. When he tried to shout out commands, an inarticulate, barely human wail escaped his throat instead.

  He heard the deep, rumbling, grating sound of Highfast’s main gate opening, and turned in confusion.

  The inner gate already stood open, as it always did during daylight. Herraic could see down the long tunnel that ran out to the bridge and the road and the mountains. There were figures struggling with one another, down there at the end of the passage. They seemed impossibly distant. Herraic had to narrow his eyes to hold back the blurring waves of distortion that threatened to sweep across his vision. They were his men, fighting with each other there at the outer gate: one trying to push it closed once more, the other trying to prevent him. Herraic was dumbfounded.

  Someone brushed past him, almost knocking him over.

  “It’s the library,” they were shouting. “The halfbreeds have gone mad. They’re killing each other.”

  Herraic’s hands were shaking now. Savage emotions – terror, fury – that were not his own had him in their grip. He was watching, in disbelieving shock, his own mind, his life and everything he had ever thought to be true, all coming apart.

  More figures running now, up from the gate, through the passageway, like rats rushing up out of the earth towards the light, towards him. Woodwights. Herraic heard himself laughing at the sheer insanity of all this. There were arrows in the air, ringing off Highfast’s ancient stone. Men were dying. He saw it, but no longer understood it. The Captain of Highfast fled, weeping as he ran.

  Herraic hid in a long-abandoned storeroom until the cacophony, both outside and within his skull, subsided. He could not tell how long it took, for he was alone and lost and besieged. As the noises –

  terrible noises, death cries, screams – fell away, so the relentless, disorientating waves of fear receded.

  His breath came more easily. His mind fell back into a shape he could recognise. And as it did so, he understood that whatever had happened, it had not been a natural thing, of the natural world. It had been some strange intrusion of the inhuman, incorporeal domain of the na’kyrim into his own. He went, still trembling, to discover what kind of disaster had befallen the castle he had been meant to hold. He held his sword out in front of him, knowing that it was far too late for such a gesture, but clinging to that small token of defiance, and the illusory capability it suggested.

  There were still fires burning somewhere. He could smell them, and the sky above Highfast was stained with their black-brown breath. He found bodies. In the courtyard, in passageways, in the stables and the kitchens; human and Kyrinin, and na’kyrim too. Some of his men had made a stand in the stables, it seemed, for their corpses were piled there, with horses dead alongside them. There were dead woodwights, stretched out on the cobbles of the yard, and in doorways leading off it. Amongst them, the corpse of the na’kyrim whom Herraic had seen in Highfast’s kitchens. He had looked dead even then.

  Now, he had assuredly passed into the Sleeping Dark. Cerys had always called him the Dreamer, but he would be dreaming no more dreams. To judge by the contortions of his limbs, the dried blood on his face and his arms, and his fixed expression of horror, his death had been cruel.

  Herraic wandered amongst all this in a daze. He thought at first that he might be the only one left alive, but one by one other survivors came out from their hiding places. Herraic saw in the eyes of every one of them the same stunned vacancy he felt himself. They all looked as though they were only just waking, after a punishing dream.

  An old na’kyrim , a little man, was amongst them. He came blinking into the watery light of the courtyard. Herraic, collecting weapons from the bodies of his men, saw the halfbreed shuffle to the centre of the courtyard and stand staring down at the body of the Dreamer. The old man had a piece of wood in his hands, which he kept turning and grasping. It took Herraic a moment or two to recognise him. He could not remember his name, but this was one of those who had come to Highfast with the Lannis Thane, only to remain here when Orisian moved on.

  “He’s dead,” Herraic murmured to the halfbreed. That piece of wood in his hands was a half-finished carving, he could see now. The outlines of tiny figures had been cut, but they remained vague and ill-defined, as if they had been frozen in the act of emerging from the wood.

  The na’kyrim was shaking his head, and worrying away at the carving with his trembling hands.

  “No. Not him. Not dead. Sad to say. Oh, sad to say. He was only visiting. Only passing through.”

  Herraic frowned, not understanding. He was distracted by someone shouting his name from one of the windows of the keep. He looked up, squinting against a brief flash of the sun through a crack in the clouds.

  “Captain!” he heard. “The Shadowhand’s gone. They took him.”

  CHAPTER 4

  Shadowhand

  Power loves not the light of day, nor the attention of curious eyes. In darkness it thrives most.

  Examined too closely, it withers. A lord may send his army hither and thither, but the true testing of his power is in those places where his army is not. Has he sunk the roots of his power deep enough into the earth of his lands? Has he sent its long fingers far enough through the backstreets and alleys, into the drinking dens and the lending-houses, so that he may gather them unto himself and hold them firm without a single swordsman?

  When a man may whisper in a close ear, and that whisper be repeated far away and many moons later, then he has power. When a man may speak against another, and that other be brought to ruin and rue by nothing more than those words, then he has power. And if a man can act without the appearance of action, and bring about great change without the appearance of desiring it, then he has power.

  Ask me not who the most powerful has been, for I know not his name, and nor do you. The greatest power will have been cultivated in the shadows, and the further into darkness and secrecy it was sunk, the mightier will have been its exercising.

  from The Huanin Lords

  by an unknown hand, writing amidst chaos at the beginning of the Third Age,

  translated from the western form of Old Aygll

  I

  A kind of fever had taken hold of Kolkyre. The ancient city was convulsed by anger, riddled with fearful rumour. The ferment was such that Anyara began to think that normal conversation was no longer possible. Every exchange she heard seemed to be conducted either in whispers or in the anguished, strident tones of outrage or grief. The death of Lheanor oc Kilkry-Haig had shaken his city out of balance.

  The dead Thane was burned in the gardens that ringed the Tower of Thrones. The fire raged, turning pyre and corpse into a great column of flame, noise, smoke and heat, killing the grass around and beneath. The gardens would be scarred, at least until this winter was done with. As would the people of Kolkyre, Anyara thought, as she watched the faces of those come to witness the conflagration: distraught, stunned, vacant.

  Roaric was there, arm about Ilessa, his now-widowed mother. Ilessa was weeping silently. The new Thane of the Kilkry Blood looked like a man barely in control of his emotions. His eyes were locked on the heart of the flames, as if there was nothing in his world save that fire, and whatever burned within him.

  Cailla the kitchen maid had been put into an unmarked grave outside the city walls. On the very night of her burial, so Anyara had heard, someone had dug up and dismembered the old woman’s body. Roaric had spoken of Cailla only once within Anyara’s earshot.

  “I would have her alive if it was possible,” he had said, “so that I could kill her again.”

  Now the Thane was silent, like everyone else gathered about the crackling pyre. Lagair Haldyn was there, his expression unreadable, a knot of Haig warriors around him and his wife. Aewult had left a hundred or more men in the city, under the Steward’s command; just enough to keep resentment simmering amongst Kolkyre’s inhabitants.
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  A rising, gusting wind whipped the flames back and forth. Waves of heat came and went across Anyara’s face. She grieved for Lheanor. She had liked him. But the thoughts that smudged her vision with unshed tears were of her own dead father, Kennet, and of Croesan her uncle, and all the others of her family who had died. No one was left now save Orisian, and he had gone from her, out into an unsafe world.

  Coinach her shieldman moved a little at her side, breaking her mournful reverie. He turned his face away from a blast of hot wind, and in doing so caught her eye for a moment. He gave her a faint, sympathetic smile.

  The flames were dwindling, past the peak of their intensity. The centre of the pyre fell in, belching out a swarm of sparks. The wind took them and tumbled them away. They flared and died amongst the apple trees. Horns were blown. Their mournful voices drowned out the roar of the fire for a time, echoing off the smooth stone of the Tower. It was that sound, filling the whole world, that made Anyara weep at last.

  It carried every loss, every grief, within it, and it was, briefly, too much to bear.

  She saw, as she brushed a tear from her cheek, Lagair the Steward moving away. He and his wife and their accompanying warriors turned and shuffled through the crowd. Roaric was watching them go. The Thane’s gaze was so sharp with loathing that Anyara feared, then, for the future.

  On the day after Lheanor’s burning, Anyara went to visit Jaen Narran in her chambers in the town barracks. Coinach accompanied her, as always. She would be surprised now if one day she turned around and did not find him there, silent, attentive and observant.

  If Anyara did not know better, she might have thought Taim’s wife flustered by her arrival. The woman rushed around, clearing unnecessary space on the table, searching for her own cloak. They were to go together to visit the few dozen Lannis folk who still lived in squalor in Kolkyre’s northern parts. The plan had been agreed the day before, so Anyara knew it was not surprise that made Jaen fuss so. Rather, she imagined, it was the anxiety that affected everyone in the city, like an affliction leaping from one warm body to the next through touch or breath or glance. And for Jaen, as for Anyara, its edge could only be sharpened by the knowledge that someone precious to her was still facing immeasurable danger.

  “I brought as much as I could from the Tower kitchens,” Anyara said. Coinach, who had carried the sack of ham and bread and apples for her, set it down on the table with a thump.

  “Good, good,” Jaen replied without looking up. She was burrowing now in a chest, digging amongst blankets in search of something.

  “How is your daughter?” Anyara asked.

  Jaen straightened, clutching a thin shawl in her hands. She settled it about her shoulders.

  “Well, thank you, lady. Her husband takes good care of her. He will make a good father to the child, luck allowing.”

  “Luck allowing,” Anyara said, nodding.

  “I have some stew I made,” Jaen said, pointing to a lidded iron pot that sat by the fire. “I thought some warmth would be welcomed, now that the weather’s set in its cold path. Nothing worse than not having hot food in winter.”

  “No,” agreed Anyara.

  “You’ve no word, I suppose, from the north. From home?” Jaen asked the question almost nervously, almost as if she doubted her right to venture it. Or perhaps it was the possibility of an answer that she shied away from.

  “Nothing,” Anyara said, with a shake of her head. “The Bloodheir must be in Kolglas by now, but there’s been no word of what’s happening come back to the Tower of Thrones yet. Not that I’ve heard, anyway. You’ll be one of the first to hear, Jaen, when there is anything.”

  The woman nodded, and smiled sadly.

  “Should we go, then?” she suggested.

  They went out into the streets, wrapped against the wind-driven flecks of snow, and headed north. A couple of Taim’s warriors – some of the handful he had left behind when he marched for Kolglas – went with them, carrying the food. They walked a little ahead, to clear the way, but in truth there were no crowds to part. The streets of Kolkyre, emptied by cold air and cold hearts, were seldom busy these days. The faces of those others they did encounter were grim. The death of a Thane would always dispirit his people, but the manner of Lheanor’s demise had done more than that: it had made them bitter and suspicious as well as grief-stricken. None – so Anyara hoped and believed, at least – looked upon her with hostility. Perhaps it was only that she reminded all those who recognised her of the cruelty of the times they lived in.

  They heard the mob before they saw it: a maelstrom of angry voices. At once, Coinach slowed and put a restraining hand on Anyara’s arm. The noise was fat with violence. Jaen pulled her shawl tighter about her. A crowd of figures poured around a corner and onto the street ahead of them. It came surging up like a debris-laden flood wave. Two men ran at its head, fleeing it, but unable to outpace it. They were Haig warriors.

  Coinach pushed Anyara unceremoniously towards a doorway. She did not resist, but managed to grab hold of Jaen’s shoulder and pull her along with them. The mob came rushing on. The objects of its fury crashed past the two Lannis men before they could get out of the way. The sack of food from the Tower’s kitchens fell and emptied its contents across the roadway. The pot of Jaen’s stew clattered down. The crowd poured around the Lannis warriors without pause, blind to them.

  “What’s happening?” gasped Jaen.

  Anyara, pressed into the doorway by Coinach, said nothing, but she had no doubt of what would happen if the crowd caught their quarry.

  Peering over Coinach’s shoulder, she saw one of the Haig men go down, the other turn, trying to draw his sword. The mass of their pursuers broke over them and boiled around them like wild dogs biting at sheep. Bodies crashed against Coinach – Anyara felt the impacts through his chest – but no one had eyes for anything except the two fallen men. Anyara saw a heavy lumber axe rising and falling, a long staff beating down again and again. Fists. Boots. Jaen was hiding her eyes. Anyara longed to, but did not.

  The storm blew itself out. The crowd scattered. Some of its members fled, running as if pursued by the horror of what had happened. Other lingered. Some spat on the two battered, crumpled corpses; some simply stared down at them, as if surprised by their own handiwork. Coinach carefully stepped away from Anyara. He had his sword in his hand.

  “We should get back to the Tower,” he said.

  Anyara, still standing in the doorway, her arm around Jaen, nodded.

  Late that evening, Anyara was alone in her room in the Tower of Thrones, repairing the stitching in the sleeve of a dress. It was not even her dress – just one of those that Ilessa had found for her – and she could have summoned a seamstress to undertake the task, but she found the repetitive, precise movement went some way towards calming her thoughts. It required just enough concentration to keep at bay the worst of the memories and worries that might otherwise intrude.

  Coinach admitted one of the Tower’s maids. The young girl bobbed her head respectfully.

  “The Thane has asked for you, my lady, in the hall.”

  Anyara hesitated. She was not dressed for an appearance before Roaric oc Kilkry-Haig and any others of Kolkyre’s elite who might be present.

  “I should change,” she said.

  “N-no need, my lady. The Thane . . . he said to bring you as I find you. As quickly as I could.”

  Anyara set aside the dress on which she had been working and stood up. She did not want to leave this quiet room and submit herself once again to the grim atmosphere that prevailed beyond its door, but at the best of times it would be unwise to refuse a summons from a Thane. And these were not the best of times, and Roaric was not the most even-tempered of Thanes.

  She and Coinach followed the maid down the long spiral stair and were ushered into the hall through a small side door. Many others were there before them: officials of the Tower, Ilessa and the Thane himself, sitting straight-backed and hard-faced on his great wooden sea
t. Roaric noticed Anyara as soon as she entered and beckoned her over. She went, with no little trepidation, and bent her head to listen to his murmur.

  “I am glad you could join us. I wanted you to see what is about to happen. To see that the Kilkry Blood is unbroken, and still mindful of its enemies as well as its friends. Stand close.” He gestured towards a nearby gap in the ranks of the assembled audience. Anyara went to stand there and await events. She glanced questioningly at Coinach, but the shieldman just gave a shrug. He looked no more happy to be there than Anyara felt.

  The main doors swung open and Lagair Haldyn marched purposefully in, flanked by Haig warriors dressed in ceremonial finery. Anyara’s heart sank.

  “Steward,” Roaric said equably before Lagair could utter a word, “I heard you wished to speak with us.

  I am at your disposal.”

  “With you, sire. Not with your entire household.”

  “Well, on this occasion I think you had best take what you find,” Roaric said, much less warmly now. “I will be retiring to my chambers shortly, and interring my father’s ashes tomorrow. My time is limited.”

  “Very well.” Lagair was, as far as Anyara could tell, untroubled by the hostility of his reception. “What I have to say is no secret. My demand is a just one, and I will gladly let any hear it who wish to listen.”

  “Demand? This is not the place for demands, Steward. This is the Tower of Thrones, and I am Thane in it. Not Bloodheir, mark. Thane.”

  “You may call it what you wish, Thane, once you have heard it,” Lagair said tightly. “Whatever name you give to it, though, I will have it answered. Two men of the Haig Blood were slain today. Men who marched from their homes to come to the defence of your Blood, and who would have died in that defence if called upon to do so. Instead they died like animals in a backstreet of this city, set upon by your people. Beaten to death like—”

  “I heard that they brought trouble upon themselves,” Roaric interrupted him.